EAP820/1

The colonial reports and correspondence as well as court registers held in the Cercle archives of Kita (Mali) attest to the establishment of numerous freed slave communities in the region in the aftermath of the French colonial abolition of slavery in 1905. This collection contains documentation from the Kita colonial authorities (1899-1960). It comes from the Governor’s office, the judiciary and diverse administrative services, and concerns notably general administration, personal records, religious affairs, finance, security, agriculture in the Kita cercle.

This collection was produced and archived by colonial authorities of the Kita Cercle from 1899 (oldest document held in the archives) to 1960 (Mali Independence). This colonial archival deposit was inherited by the Kita Cercle authorities at the time of Mali's independence and managed by them since.

The archival deposit was initially created by the colonial authorities of the Kita Cercle and transferred to the postcolonial Malian authorities of the Cercle. Currently, the Préfet of Kita is responsible for the collection. Nobody is currently looking after the collection nor managing it. The documents are currently badly stored in a room of about 6m3, which belongs to the Kita city hall. They are piled together in crumbling cabinets or in plastic boxes. Some of the documentation from both the colonial and postcolonial era have been put unordered in 89 office storage boxes.